JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Not really all that bad. Hardly qualifies as treating customers like trash.
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Sony seems to be heading all-in on anti-consumer practices.
- Thread starter Voost Kain
- Start date
Silent Viper
Banned
Tlou 2 >>>> all anti consumer practices. They can rob ppl blind and i still forgive them .
Kagey K
Banned
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Starlight Lotice
Member
I understand most of the complaints, but the Vita one is really odd given they didn't make the effort in the first place (and I am a Vita owner with many games).
I would say that the control to Sony America has caused most of the problems; although some of the problems seem to be that Sony are out of touch (even moreso than Nintendo), in terms of being very un-cooperative with their competitors and Indie Developers. I would say that the big Western Developers have a strong grip on the Console Sector now and Sony doesn't really want to upset them.
Before this, it was more Japanese but it seems that Sony saw the writing on the wall in the late PS3 era (before the resurgence) and decided to give Sony America the reigns on the console side to turn it around as Microsoft did a good job for the 360.
They didn't expect that the Japanese games would sell again, but it was too late by this point.
I do agree with the Zanki Zero censorship, but not mostly everything else.
The only way to stop this or at least influence the power shift back to Sony Japan would be to support Nintendo and Microsoft who seem to be trying to make some of the pracises less painful/more supportive for gamers/japanese developers.
The PS2 Integration is interesting though. I assumed they had to do those from the ground up to add Trophy Support and adding in the HD?
I would say that the control to Sony America has caused most of the problems; although some of the problems seem to be that Sony are out of touch (even moreso than Nintendo), in terms of being very un-cooperative with their competitors and Indie Developers. I would say that the big Western Developers have a strong grip on the Console Sector now and Sony doesn't really want to upset them.
Before this, it was more Japanese but it seems that Sony saw the writing on the wall in the late PS3 era (before the resurgence) and decided to give Sony America the reigns on the console side to turn it around as Microsoft did a good job for the 360.
They didn't expect that the Japanese games would sell again, but it was too late by this point.
I do agree with the Zanki Zero censorship, but not mostly everything else.
The only way to stop this or at least influence the power shift back to Sony Japan would be to support Nintendo and Microsoft who seem to be trying to make some of the pracises less painful/more supportive for gamers/japanese developers.
The PS2 Integration is interesting though. I assumed they had to do those from the ground up to add Trophy Support and adding in the HD?
SonGoku
Member
lol no, backpad was trash as a l2/r2 replacement and not what it was meant for
No, people are just critical of dumb ass decisions that benefit no one Sony included
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Angry_Megalodon
Member
Let's not count the best AAA exclusives out there and the only console with VR. In the case of VR you cannot even watch it on youtube, like the other games.
It's so funny to say that Sony is censoring or vetoing asian developers when it is by far the console with more games of those regions.
If I buy a Playstation console is for having great games that I cannot play elsewhere. All the other stuff you mention amounts zero to nothing in most people's minds.
It's so funny to say that Sony is censoring or vetoing asian developers when it is by far the console with more games of those regions.
If I buy a Playstation console is for having great games that I cannot play elsewhere. All the other stuff you mention amounts zero to nothing in most people's minds.
Sqorin Hammerfarf
Banned
Nintendo easily has the best exclusives, but I'll concede on the VR thing. I love VR, and only Sony is doing it. It's really amazing, though, that Sony has made no way to actually watch VR videos on the PS4 except through a third party app which is now requiring a subscription. Sony's media app, despite having a VR mode, does not actually do VR movies.
Past tense, maybe. Most Japanese developers are targeting the Switch now, with a lot of previously exclusive games being multiplatform on the Switch, but because it takes a year or longer for releases to make it out here, we haven't fully felt the effects of this. I think most Japanese releases these days is multiplat with the Switch. Fate/EXTELLA Link, Tales of Vesperia, My Hero Academia, Valkyria Chronicles 4, and so on.
I think Gun Gun Pixies was ported to the Switch and PC just so they could release it here. It was previously a Vita exclusive, but PQube (who are releasing the game here) got burned pretty god damned hard on Omega Labyrinth (Sony refused to allow it, just weeks before release). Similarly, Moero Chronicle just had a Switch version announced (it was previously a Vita/PC game that came out here as a PC game only) and a US released was announced almost simultaneously. Japanese developers - particularly of the fanservice variety - are abandoning Sony.
Fair enough. Personally, the Playstation is making great games less great, so when given the option, I'm buying them somewhere else that respects the wishes of the game creators. I've never been a fan of middle management taking creative control from the talent.
bitbydeath
Member
You’re probably referring to those that try reverse the payment which sees Sony fined. I agree they shouldn’t have the account banned but rather pass that fine onto the offender instead.
Maybe it’s too tricky to force them to pay it though? I dunno.
HeresJohnny
Member
I know rite. Next thing you know they’ll be making digital only consoles and trying have full control over everyone’s content.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
It's a weird situation because card companies don't refund transactions just for the hell of it. I've had charges reversed, but had to prove it's wasn't my fault or I got a shitty product.
1. I had fraudulent charges on my card where someone in the US was making purchases at Target stores in Florida. I live in the Toronto area. After a chat, proof of myself not being in Florida (I was making transactions locally at the same time), and myself requiring a signed reply in the mail saying they can investigate, Florida transactions were cancelled.
2. A shady plumber I found online for local help tried to screw me over where I paid a deposit when he visited to check it out and he never came back to actually fix it. I sent the CC company the bill he gave me, told them he never fixed it and showed proof my pipes were still leaking. and had to call another guy over to fix it. Charge reversed.
So for gamers to get Sony PSN charges reversed, "shouldn't" be so easy. CC companies want proof of something shitty going on before they do anything. If they agree there's broken products or something clearly fishy like my Florida charges, they will reverse them. They won't reverse it just because they want to be a nice guy and have nothing better to do that afternoon.
So if the CC company is reversing charges, Sony shouldn't be blacklisting gamers. It means something was wrong, which the CC company sided with the gamer. In that case, Sony should eat the cost, or since it is a digital game, simply agree with the reversal and take away access to the game. Simple as that. No different than someone with a broken TV a store says get lost. CC company refunds your money and to be fair return the broken TV.
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Dragon_Rocks
Member
I just want to ask one question. If Sony really is anti-consumer, why are they able to sell so many consoles and games to you know, the consumers?
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Posts a glowing Forbes Contributor like thread about Google Stadia that you’ll never own shit in; in which that company in question collects data on you and sells it but never give you any residual for, and then post a thread like this?
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Fbh
Member
Shawn Layden: Coughs once during and interview
Voost Kain: Now that Shawn Layden clearly has lung cancer is it the end for Playstation?
Anyway. I definitely think they do have a bunch of shitty practices, particularly in regards to refunds and backwards compatibility (I get no Ps3, but now Ps1 and 2 was disappointing) and I'm also not a fan of their push for censorship.
With that said, I don't think any company is without issues. I have my fair share of complains about Nintendo too and while I don't have an Xbox I'm sure MS probably also has a few problems. I don't really think any big company is ·pro-consumer", all the "good" things they do are done because they think it will be beneficial for the company (either financially or as PR).
Serious question though. Do the analog sticks still have issues on a large scale? My launch dualshock had the "peeling" problem but I've had no issue at all with the 3 other controllers I've gotten since.
Voost Kain: Now that Shawn Layden clearly has lung cancer is it the end for Playstation?
Anyway. I definitely think they do have a bunch of shitty practices, particularly in regards to refunds and backwards compatibility (I get no Ps3, but now Ps1 and 2 was disappointing) and I'm also not a fan of their push for censorship.
With that said, I don't think any company is without issues. I have my fair share of complains about Nintendo too and while I don't have an Xbox I'm sure MS probably also has a few problems. I don't really think any big company is ·pro-consumer", all the "good" things they do are done because they think it will be beneficial for the company (either financially or as PR).
Serious question though. Do the analog sticks still have issues on a large scale? My launch dualshock had the "peeling" problem but I've had no issue at all with the 3 other controllers I've gotten since.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
That's the thing, whether a company has anti-consumer practices or not, if the general public is still buying it loving the product, does it really matter? Can't appease everyone.
Now if there's criminal elements like Sony messing with people's profiles and stealing CC info for ill-advised charges hoping people don't notice, that's different.
But the majority of the bullet points are policy changes or product changes. The core product of console and games is still in tact.
A grocery store I know doesn't do price matching anymore even though the competing chain across the street does it. Anti-consumer when just about every other store does it? Maybe. But not the end of the world.
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Zog
Banned
um...because game consumers don't care much about their consumer rights, is this a mystery? Gamers beg for games, they don't need to be convinced to buy them when an announcement is enough for some gamers to say 'shut up and take my money' or some similar desperate quote.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
People only care for consumer rights when it's something stupid they can latch onto, complain and then hope to claim..... "Yay, I won. Hahaha"
All banking, mortgage, and loan companies are all linked together in central databases where everyone can see which loans, payments and debts you have. All it takes is one submission to Equifax or whatever and they can see everything. You want a mortgage? Ok, hold on..... the company says they will approve your mortgage if you first pay off your Visa bill since it says it has $10,000 still on it.
That's some consumer protection and rights huh? Financial institutions can snoop around all day if they want, and the pure assholes will surely have some shady employees stealing info right from your bank account.
Yet nobody gives a shit even though it's your own money at stake.
Someone will say...... "Well, it's fair they can do this so the banks decrease risk of deadbeats. So let them pre-scope out people so they can help their profits". That's a fair statement. And I agree with having banks all knowing everyone's debts.
But gaming companies changing policies or product lines to help their balance sheet isn't allowed?
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Zog
Banned
You can't really stop banks from doing what they do but you can control your own behavior in regards to video games. As for their balance sheet? What other companies get this kind of consideration from you?
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Sure people can change. If people protest enough and try to get government involved, why should someone's financial situation be grouped up and shared among all institutions? People's medical/dental records aren't shared by doctors and hospitals unless the citizen allows sharing. So people's health records are protected, but people's banking records are allowed to be centralized?
As for balance sheets, I don't care about them at all. My point is companies can do what they want if they think it helps (as long as it's legal), and people complain about pretty menial things in life hoping corporations change. But when it comes down to among the most important things in life (someone's private info about their finances), nobody seems to give a shit.
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Zog
Banned
Gamers acting desperate certainly has an impact on how anti-consumer the game industry is.
Castle Doctrine
Member
They got good games tho.
It’s not that some of the complaints aren’t legit. But every company has a list. And only focusing on that list makes them all look like the devil. Sony isn’t Pop Copy
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Among the most key anti-consumer stuff relates to digital. And funny enough, the reason why digital took off is simply due to gamers buying it up. If people weren't so lazy (too lazy to swap discs, go to a store to buy it or order it online, and didn't want pay to win quick fixes buying microtrans), console gaming would still be in the disc world.
Gamers laziness outweighs the perks of traditional discs, which was all the rave in 2013:
- Trade it, sell it
- Let friend borrow it
- No need to spend $100+ for huge external HDD (assuming the system can keep up with disc reading speeds like the 360/PS3 days)
- You can play the game offline and technically forever
- Disc media means the system will have an optical drive. So it doubles as a DVD/BR/4k player to play old movies (not everything is on Netflix)
Dragon_Rocks
Member
Kagey K
Banned
I’m probably already on the list, but nobody cares.
Feel free to ignore who you want, but it doesn’t need a public announcement every time.
It’s literally only you who cares who is and isn’t on your ignore list.
Ps: I feel like putting people on ignore because they say things you don’t like is a cop out and takes away from the discussion here, but you do you.
BlackTron
Member
So because when I want to borrow 200k for a house they need to check my info, it's ok for Sony to treat me like dog shit for the privilege of sending them money?
Your analogy sucks.
Zog
Banned
The First Sale Doctrine and digital purchases? In fact, do digital consumers have any rights of ownership to their purchases? Can't a digital store take away your purchases at any time and gamers respond to this by complaining that it's too hard to change a disc/card as they buy digital and throw their ownership rights away.
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Dragon_Rocks
Member
Zog
Banned
Can you resell a digital game?
Kagey K
Banned
How long do you expect those rights to stick around for physical?
Your physical rights are just as useless as your digital ones for games like Destiny or The Division, nevermind that if these digital services ever shut down your buggy physical game with no day one patch will remain buggy.
Or worse yet on Switch your Spyro trilogy becomes only Spyro 1.
There are no inheriant advantages to buying physical now, except to be able to own and resell the disc. For some gamers that isn’t enough.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
It's an excellent analogy. Sharing of banking info (which should get big swarms of people advocating for rights and privacy) is among the only things in the country where companies share your money info and there's nothing you can do about it. Yet nobody cares.
Here's another one. Your credit rating gets dinged depending what kind of inquiry is done. https://www.credit.com/credit-reports/what-is-a-hard-inquiry/
The thread is about overall anti-consumer gaming practices. And in the list mentioned by the OP, the majority of those issues are minor. Yet people complain like it's a huge deal.
Zog
Banned
Exactly, even the consumer rights where physical games are concerned are going away and game consumers largely don't seem to care. Just give them their next 'fix' and they are fine with the industry as it is. Why don't consumers demand that their digital purchases be guaranteed for an explicit amount of time? Why don't consumers demand a means to download and keep game patches outside official channels for game preservation? It's because they don't give a damn about their consumer rights. Every game they buy has a timestamp now and they don't seem to care.
Kagey K
Banned
You miss the part where those are huge investments in real life, vs a hobby or entertainment. Your arguement would be more feasible if you had to borrow a quarter million dollars to play a game.
Different things have different expectations,
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Zog
Banned
You can resell all of these things. My local game shop sells DVD's and Blu-Rays as well as games. Used book stores have always existed and if you want a used CD, no doubt you can find them on ebay.
What was your point?
The_Mike
I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
And this is the problem. This is why Sony can get away with their low standard.
Kagey K
Banned
That gaming is different, for some unknown reason.
I know there are buyers and resellers of all media, but for some reason everything outside of gaming seems much smaller, and every time I see someone say they resell games I’m always interested to see if they resell their other media as well.
Most of these complaints are trivial that most companies do today in different ways.
Your only valid points are locking out the software emulation of PlayStation and PlayStation 2.
Zog
Banned
Gaming is different because consumers allow it to be.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Not different.
People get mad at companies selling your info for marketing crap like spam and telemarketing. No money, snooping around or credit ratings are even involved. Just some minimum wage people trying to sell you something over the phone. No harm. Just decline.
And people hate when companies do that. It gets so heated, that's why they have no-call lists, and major fines for spambots and robocalls. Laws are set up to appease citizens for privacy because some guy bought a mailing list and wants to call you to sell lawnmowing service and people go ape shit.
Banks all share your info and work together against you (even though they are corporations that should be competing against one another) by tracking your loans ensuring they protect one another's asses. And as I said, nobody cares. If car dealerships were all calling each other helping each other keep prices up, they would get hit with anticompetitive laws.
Airbus Jr
Banned
I think most of us here are already familiar with your post
dont think any of those are matters when it comes to playstation platform since theres no point adding advice to this disscusion from a haters perspective
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Kagey K
Banned
I’m sure you are just as unbiased.
You certainly proved that right at the top of page 2.
We should definately take your word over his when criticizing PlayStation.
Dragon_Rocks
Member
I think you cannot. But then can you resell a digital game bought on Xbox or on Nintendo device? Can you resell a digital movie bought on Prime video or other streaming channels? How about a digital copy of a software purchased and downloaded on your PC?
Why is Sony alone being targeted and blamed for this as being anti consumer and violating their rights?
Kagey K
Banned
I don’t think that was a Sony jab, it was a jab at digital video games as a whole.
Very interesting response though.
Zog
Banned
I never said Sony was alone in this. I said that gaming consumers don't care about their consumer rights. It's true about digital movies too but I have to give the movie industry some credit. If you buy physical you get a Blu Ray, a DVD AND a digital code and further, you can watch those movies (physical and digital) on many different devices.
So yeah, a little credit where it's due. Why don't you get a digital code when a buy a physical copy of a game?
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
I'd say consumers as a whole don't care about digital rights and policies. Pretty sure nobody reads those 10 pages of terms and conditions when they install a piece of software.
Buy a car, and everyone will go nuts and meticulously read the warranty to make sure they are covered. Buy software, and people click Yes to terms asap.
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DeepEnigma
Gold Member
The irony, is that the OP made a glowing post about Google Stadia of all things. One in which you will never have any sort of physical ownership to what you pay for, and no compensation for data that is collected on you and sold (something Google is well know for as a core business revenue model) by them.
On it's own, this topic, is one that can be discussed in some degree by all gaming providers in one form or another based on their policies, but coming from the source of the thread, the patterns, it comes off as rather disingenuous.
How ironic that they would be okay with a gaming future where you give money to something you will never own, while never being compensated for the data that is mined from you. and selling to their (Google's) partners,
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Dragon_Rocks
Member
But this thread about Sony being anti consumer and if gamers who are the primary consumer of Sony's gaming products, be it devices or software, are getting what they need from Sony then why is it being considered anti consumer of everyone else does the same. I am not saying that you are the one saying this but in general. Also Sony has not forced anyone to buy digital and be locked to it. Majority of the high profile games have both physical and digital versions available and people can buy physical and then resell it or trade it in when done. I myself always get the physical version of the game and then trade it if I didn't like it as much to replay later.
I get that some of the business decisions that Sony has taken are not in favor of consumers but then they are a business and would want to do things that make them more profit than before. The amount of gamers who feel or are impacted by these decisions seem to be far in the extreme minority due to which Sony's business has not been impacted much and they still doing good. If they really go super anti consumer in ways which would impact majority of gamers then gamers will surely put them in their place just like how they did to MS with their Xbox One shenanigans during launch.
Heimdall_Xtreme
Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
I still have a scar of Gravity rush 2 servers and what are doing with my i.p. Gravity rush, i hope that all of us can be together and say sony that change their mind or we dont buy the last of us part Ii.